Shannen, thanks for your question.
I notice that Mr. Awlaki, whose name (according to Gregory Johnson, a Yemen scholar at Princeton) had not once appeared in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula propaganda until the United States named him a “commander” of the organization and put him on its hit list, has received a posthumous promotion. But who was he, really?
Johnson argues that his role in al-Qaeda has been grossly exaggerated by the Obama administration:
He is far from the terrorist kingpin that the West has made him out to be. In fact, he isn’t even the head of his own organization, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. That would be Nasir al-Wuhayshi, who was Osama bin Laden’s personal secretary for four years in Afghanistan.
Nor is Mr. Awlaki the deputy commander, a position held by Said Ali al-Shihri, a former detainee at Guantánamo Bay who was repatriated to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and put in a “terrorist rehabilitation” program. (The treatment, clearly, did not take.)
Mr. Awlaki isn’t the group’s top religious scholar (Adil al-Abab), its chief of military operations (Qassim al-Raymi), its bomb maker (Ibrahim Hassan Asiri) or even its leading ideologue (Ibrahim Suleiman al-Rubaysh).
Rather, he is a midlevel religious functionary who happens to have American citizenship and speak English. This makes him a propaganda threat, but not one whose elimination would do anything to limit the reach of the Qaeda branch.
Maybe Johnson is right. Maybe not. That is precisely the sort of thing we have trials to determine, when the person in question is an American citizen.
If Awlaki had been killed in combat, that would be a different thing. But he was not. If anybody can be designated an enemy combatant in a war in which the battleground is everywhere and the president has legally unlimited power to do as he will, and when citizens can be put to death summarily, with no checks and balances and no meaningful separation of powers, we have surrendered something important.
And how!
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"A dead man's just a corpse. Nobody cares who he was."
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse-- The Steel Helmet
Nice to know NRO is broadening its base to include Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNow let's all join hands at Camp Victory and sing Puff the Magic Dragon.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseKevin,
I agree with your view, and have a bit of trouble myself over the premeditated killing of a U.S. citizen without due process. I and my cowriter drum up some legal means to have forced him to relinquish his citizenship (some perhaps problematic), but at least something like this would have been worth a shot. As it is, this only required an executive order. So how many American citizens are out there who have been designated a "terrorist threat" making them prime targets for this sort of thing?
And this comes from someone who advocated the killing of Baitullah Mehsud and Zarqawi, and advocates the same for General Suleimani and Hassan Hasrallah. I'm no liberal.
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe politicization of America's military efforts is utterly unbecoming, no matter who does it. If George Bush had offed an al Qaeda leader - mid-level or not - I don't think I'd be hearing a lot of folks on the right lamenting about his right to a trial. American first, remember?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI can't say anything about most of the posters, they weren't posting here back then.
But the author is on record of making the same complaints back when Bush was president.
The posters who I do remember from back then, haven't changed their positions either.
So as usual, liberals state as fact, things they know aren't true.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMark W
really, everyone here on NRO commenting approvingly of the death of a mid level Al Q is a Liberal? Because we aren't neo confederate Lincoln haters? What an odd, tiny definition of conservative.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm guesing you aren't a regular here.
BMore Liberals tag name couldn't be more descriptive.
Where did I say that anyone's stand on this issue makes them a liberal or a conservative.
What I said is that liberals have a habit of making claims that they know aren't true.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat's strange. There were no comments on NRO during the Bush administration. I do believe they only started up this year.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBmore liberal:
"I don't think I'd be hearing a lot of folks on the right lamenting about his right to a trial."
And you aren't in this case, either. Kevin is an outlier among those of us on the right. Glenn Greenwald, however...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo, he was a member of the group but his ranking wasn't high enough (although he did act as a public front, was a recruiter, and pretty clearly stated the goals of his recruitment vis a vis the US). There is a fundamentally non-serious argument if I have ever heard one.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseso he's roughly the equivalent of Lord Haw Haw?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYeah, maybe we should have just sent a subpoena to Yemen, and quietly awaited his extradition.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBenjamin Wittes points out at the lawfare blog(External Link
):
"Remember, this is a person who:
1. is believed to be “part of” enemy forces within the meaning of the AUMF;
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse2. has been on notice for a lengthy period of time that he is regarded as such, is clearly aware of that, and has not only not denied it but actively taunted U.S. forces about their inability to get him;
3.has not made any attempt to surrender;
4. is believed to be playing an active, operational role in attacks against the United States; and
5. is camped out in a country that is unable to exercise civilian authority in the region in which he is located."
Keep fighting the good fight, Williamson.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSome of these people amaze me. Would they have required "due process" for every Confederate killed in the civil war?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePropaganda used effectively is non-lethal fire support and a force multiplier. There's a reason why our armed forces maintain the capacity to conduct information operations, Military Information Support Operations, and Public Affairs, and don't just leave everything to Strategic Communications.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAgain, your comments on this article are fantastic, and you obviously have some real knowledge of the subject. PsyOps are a real weapon of war. American culture is supposed to be sophisticated and able to handle informational nuances and complicated messaging. Our continuing vulnerability to PsyOps by the enemy is a dangerous weakness, and all freedom loving people should engage in an active struggle against such attacks.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'll reiterate my comment on one of the first Alwaki posts:
It is good an enemy of all right thinking people is dead. However, a Government that can call a shooting war "kinetic military action" and verbal disagreement about policy "violence" should give us pause that citizenship conveys no protection if you are viewed as an enemy by that Government.
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